A research team from eight European scientific institutions has embarked on this fourth and critical drilling campaign at the Little Dome C camp, located 35 kilometers from Concordia Station. This international endeavor, led by the Institute of Polar Sciences of the National Research Council (CNR-Isp), aims to drill from the depth reached last season, 1,836 meters, down to 2,700 meters, where the bedrock is expected to be found. Ice at this depth could hold records of Earth’s climate history dating back as far as 1.5 million years, revealing, for the first time, direct information on atmospheric temperature and greenhouse gas concentrations over such an extended period.
The team, consisting of 16 scientists and logistics staff, will work over a two-month period in Antarctic summer conditions, with average temperatures of -35°C, at the remote Little Dome C camp situated 35 kilometers from the Italian-French Concordia Station at an altitude of 3,200 meters above sea level.
“We face a very delicate and pivotal mission: our goal is to reach the bedrock,” explains Carlo Barbante, professor at Ca' Foscari University of Venice, researcher at the National Research Council’s Institute of Polar Sciences, and coordinator of Beyond EPICA. “If the team succeeds, it will mark a historic moment for climate and environmental science. Additionally, this achievement will allow us to focus the next campaign on final sampling and the closure of Little Dome C.”
The ice core from Beyond EPICA will provide unprecedented information on past climate and atmospheric composition during the Mid-Pleistocene Transition, a period between 900,000 and 1.2 million years ago when glacial cycles shifted from a 41,000-year to a 100,000-year cycle. The reasons for this change remain one of science’s mysteries, which this project aims to address.
The Beyond EPICA (European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica) - Oldest Ice project has been funded by the European Commission with €11 million and involves twelve European research institutes. In addition to the CNR and Ca' Foscari University of Venice, the National Agency for New Technologies, Energy, and Sustainable Economic Development (ENEA) is responsible, together with the French Polar Institute (IPEV), for managing the logistics.
Beyond EPICA - Oldest Ice activities benefit from synergy with research conducted under the National Antarctic Research Program (PNRA), funded by Italy’s Ministry of University and Research (MUR) and managed by CNR for scientific coordination, ENEA for the logistical planning and organization of activities at Antarctic bases, and OGS for the technical and scientific management of the icebreaker Laura Bassi.
Participants in the 2024/2025 campaign: Saverio Panichi and Michele Scalet from ENEA, Inès Gay from IPEV, Federico Scoto from CNR-Isp, Lison Soussaintjean from the University of Bern, Marie Bouchet and Ailsa Chung from the National Center for Scientific Research, Barbara Seth from the University of Bern, Lisa Ardoin from the Université Libre de Bruxelles, Julien Westhoff from the University of Copenhagen, and Benjamin Broy, Matthias Hüther, Frank Wilhelms, Johannes Lemburg, Gunther Lawer, and Martin Leonhardt from the Alfred Wegener Institute.
To learn more about Beyond EPICA Oldest Ice: http://www.linktr.ee/BeyondEpica_OldestIce
Photos:
Beyond EPICA Field Seasons Gallery: https://www.beyondepica.eu/en/gallery/field-seasons/
Videos: https://www.beyondepica.eu/en/outreach-communication/beyond-epica-on-youtube/
In brief
What: beginning of the fourth ice core drilling campaign for the European project Beyond EPICA - Oldest Ice
This project has received funding from the European Union Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 815384
The project has also been supported by national partners and funding agencies in Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, The Netherlands and the United Kingdom.